


all is really well

by jibberjabber599



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibberjabber599/pseuds/jibberjabber599
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s only after the drifts with Mako that he realizes he’s started seeing things differently—clearer, perhaps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all is really well

**Author's Note:**

> Had these two on my mind on a roadtrip and had to write SOMETHING. Excuse any mistakes.

There’s something about drifting that gives you a whole new perception, a new grasp on things, on life as you knew it before.

With Yancy it had been more of an extension of their brotherly bond, their close connection.

It’s only after the drifts with Mako that he realizes he’s started seeing things differently—clearer, perhaps. 

He wants to tell her that before, his life was similar to some colorless film on mute, every day filled with monotony, nothing special (despite the thrill he’d get in the pit of his stomach when he stood so high on the beams, like he easily could drop at any second), the weight of sorrow over losing someone so close as you were connected to them still heavy on his shoulders and mind. 

Then their connection, her memories, flipped some sort of switch within him, created this shift. Suddenly colors appear to be a bit brighter (like those two blue strands that framed her face that his fingers sometimes itched to sift through), and laughing is a bit easier.

It’s not like he remembers his brother less, it’s just the pain doesn’t seem as raw and open when he looks at the pictures of the memories they once shared, and the emptiness inside him doesn’t seem so vast and hopeless and irreversible. 

He begins to sense her presence when she enters a room, is hyperaware of the emotions raging behind her calm façade. 

His life suddenly has purpose (and no, it’s not just fighting for mankind, though that is at the top of his list).

Mako stirs up an admiration in him he’s never felt before, knows it’s in his eyes when he looks her way. 

He doesn’t tell her any of that; doesn’t have to. She already knows.

/

After they’ve destroyed the breach, after she says a final goodbye to the man who took her in and loved her as his own, she expects the nightmares to come.

She lies awake at night, restless, pushing down the memories that push with equal force to escape from the far corners of her mind. She fights the tears pricking behind her eyelids and the urge to get Raleigh. 

(She never does.

She knows he waits, patiently, aware that he feels the grief that swallows her entire being as if it’s his own.

He always waits but never pushes. She thinks she might love him for that, and not just that. He is the only part of her now that doesn’t push, push, push—unless he’s pushing something bad away.)

She waits for the nightmares like he waits for the okay to comfort her.

Except, there aren’t any nightmares to protect her from, and her sleep is dreamless. It shocks her, shocks him when she tells him, but she’s glad, he’s glad. 

She keeps herself occupied during the days as the city, the world begins restoring and adjusting to life without constant fear. 

When she isn’t busy with work, she’s with Raleigh. They do mundane things, normal human things that she never imagined the luxury of doing.

They talk about their childhoods (even though they already know each detail as they navigated their way through the other’s memories), have staring contests just to see who will give up first (really she thinks they both just like having an excuse to look into each other’s eyes) and partake in (sometimes, daily) hand-to-hand combat and fall to the ground in breathless laughter when they’re too tired to continue but having too much fun to get up.

Then one night, she has a nightmare.

She’s in Chuck Hansen’s place as Pentecost’s copilot, aware she’s dreaming but unable to shake herself awake. She wants to pull her father into an embrace one last time, but she can’t move, can’t breathe, and a steady pounding in the distance breaks through. She jolts awake, taking deep gulps of air as Raleigh continues his furious, relentless knocking.

Her clothes cling to her sweat-slickened skin as she opens the door, her fingers clumsy, a shiver traveling down her spine as she meets his panicked gaze (from the cold seeping through or him, she isn’t sure). 

He holds her close to him (her bunk is small, and they are cramped, and she’s practically on top of him), gently rubs his hand in small circles over her back and brushes her damp bangs off her forehead, and says nothing as small tremors wrack her frame.

She wonders if he’s remembering the child, the girl clutching the red shoe. 

(She is. 

And for once, the memory of that day—the ravaged city, her lost family, the man who defeated the kaiju and looked down at her with soft eyes—doesn’t feel like a wound that hadn’t healed quite yet being reopened.)

She wakes up feeling rejuvenated, emboldened, as if he’d transferred some of his strength to her by his hold on her waist. She wiggles up to press light kisses to his eyelids, his nose, and when his eyes flutter open sleepily (his gaze is reverent, almost awed, and for once he is pushing me, she thinks, with that look of his), she finally brushes her lips over his.

/

They don’t share their new development with the people who sit with them at lunch. 

(Though really, they don’t have to say a word to give themselves away.)

They sit across from each other and are both too engrossed and fascinated with their food, and there appears to be a permanent flush to her cheeks and a permanent grin etched on his lips these days. 

(He hears Newton whisper-yell, “See, I told you those two wanted to bang.”

His free hand balls into a fist the same moment he hears Newt let out a small cry of pain when Hermann smacks the back of his head.

“I do not know what you are referring to by ‘banging’, but you have upset that man. Examine how his demeanor has changed.”

That’s it, he thinks, his teeth clenching when Mako’s slender fingers glide over his fist. He looks up to see her head still bent down, eyes fixed on her food, still, but the corner of her mouth twitches up in good-humor and a chuckle escapes him as his fingers loosen. He turns his hand palm-up so she can slip hers into it.

He ignores the scientists gaping at them in confusion and thinks, throwing a smile her way, all is well. 

For once, all is really well.)


End file.
